Preterhuman (Mass Effect Fanfic)

[Black-Aengel-01]

The Species:

Human:

Sapiens: Homo Sapiens Sapiens –Extinct-

The original human species. Extinct caused by Mother.

Synthetics: Homo Machina –Extinct-

The first true synthetics. Created by replicating a human brain through technological means. As such they were called humans as well. Brought into extinction by Mother.

Preterhuman:

Organomorphs

The term derives from the fact that Mother had blurred the line between organics and machines. How much has that line been blurred depends on the species in question. Synthetic Similitude 1-10. Psionic Potential 1-10.

Magnad: Homo Magnus. SS-2 PP-3

Magnads are the apex of purely biological supremacy, being a facultative anaerobic, immortal species of hermaphrodite humans that could survive in nearly any environment any non-synthetic species could survive. From planets on the verge of freezing over, to scorching desert worlds that should not harbor any life, to methane planets, to ocean worlds. Biologically immortal, able to regenerate from any wound and with redundant vital organs and even a decentralized central nervous system (With three neuro-cortexes throughout their bodies), an adaptability that makes the Vorcha cry in envy, radio and photosynthesis, near total immunity to disease and poisons, ability to metabolize mercury, lead and other poisonous substances, heat sensing with pits under their eyes, seven different photoreceptor cones, UV sight, ultra high resistance to radiation, Levo, dexo organic biology, partial silicate biology, organic nanite cells and ultimately thermophaghia. This means that the species can change their appearance, form and abilities depending on their environments in years and survive with frightening ease.

In places where there is little food the photosynthetic bands across their backs expand until they turn pitch black, absorbing sunlight.

Places with high radiation? Enjoy seeing their skin turn reflective and silvery while, their organs and blood turn black as hyper-melaninism is engaged, proteins designed for protecting fragile systems and DNA from radiation are produced and the radiophage cells begin proliferating.

Death world full of monsters? Wait a couple of years, the only magnads you'll see will be two-three meter tall muscled behemoths with thick bio-metallic skin, clawed fingers, increased healing factor, ridiculous speeds, and armored, nearly indestructible bones… and poisonous bite.

Acidic planet? Couple of years and they won't mind the acid baths.

Frozen worlds? Antifreeze proteins, blubber and fur. Yetis!!

Methane world? Uh… facultative anaerobic? Anyone? Yeah, they might be a little sluggish there as methane doesn't provide as much ATP potential as oxygen, but they won't mind.

Ocean Worlds? Wanna see an underwater city? With no air domes? Yeah they can breathe water too.

Void of space? Well, they will die… after a ten hours of full exposure. Get them before that and you can revive them easy.

Cut off the head? No biggie, they have other neural cores that store the consciousness and memories. And bleeding out is hard because their blood vessels have sealing valves everywhere!! They might forget the face of who decapitated them though so there's that.

Yeah… these things dead? Shoot the head, then the body with a few dozen gunshots. Then cut it up into bits. Now you killed one. Now go for the next. Rinse and repeat. Few things ever consistently work! You can't poison them. Shooting their heart may not cause death because they have two hearts and micro pumps throughout their body. Radiation isn't an issue with them. Drowning them either. Setting them on fire will only go until the fire reaches the deeper dermal layers which is chuck full of fireproof scaled mesh. Starvation isn't a problem so long as they have sunlight. They grow bigger, stronger and tougher with conflict. Their brain can grow and become smarter and boost their psychic powers. Their organic nanites allow them to integrate cybernetics with the ease one places in an USB flash drive into a PC…. What you gonna do against these fuckers?! NOTHING!! You don goofed! Unless you were the Duchala… obviously.

As for the hermaphroditism thing, there is no distinction on a biological level from males and females, with the only internal physical differences being that males are usually stronger and tougher while females are usually more flexible and agile, though in some subspecies these traits is either absent (Mennos subspecies) or reversed (Rashanit Subspecies). Female morphs provide the ovum with only one X chromosome (Dominant Sex Chromosome (DSC)) and the male morph provides both an X and Y chromosomes (Recessive Sex Chromosomes (RSC)). Once the egg is fertilized, the ensuring fetus remains gender neutral until birth which then creates a psychosomatic link with one of the parents and their sex usually becomes that of which parent was linked with, which is caused by the DSC linking with the chosen RSC and leaving the other one to not be processed. This psychosomatic process can be altered which results in the sex changing from male to female and back depending on the circumstances. In other words, you can pick any two individuals and the species will live on.

Likewise they are minor psychic species, with emphasis on telepathy and empathetic touch.

With all that in place there is only one thing to say: Top that mama nature!

Their few weakness is that to maintain such an elaborate biological systems they need to hibernate every five to seven months for a half month and that their reproductive cycles are pretty slow with a yearlong gestation period.

On a psychosocial level these humans are not that distinct from us, at first glance. However, their deeper subconscious though, they are very collectivistic, placing the collective first before themselves. This isn't a cultural trait but a biological one programmed by Mother herself to harmonize the species and make sure they stopped warring with each other for petty reasons. Further mental traits make them extremely empirical creatures, as such simple things such as faith and religion is practically impossible in our era for them. They have hard wired into their own biology the need to have evidence to genuinely and truly believe in something unquestionably. And even then they might doubt. However do not assume them to be extremely logical race devoid of emotions. They do indeed possess such and they tend to be even stronger than average humans. This means the species suffers from a passion of extreme depth, and few places this is seen as intensely as with their mates, offspring and job passions.

The magnads have two types of mates. The romantic soul mates (permanent) and the breeding mates (various and fleeting). The permanent mates are usually an individual's best friend as they develop a deep emotional and direct psychic link with their partner. It reaches the point that they are quite aware of how the other feels even at vast distances. This is without memetic or psychic technological aid as it is an intrinsic part of the species. However, it is rare for them to mate with their permanent bond mate unless said bond mate has traits the other desires for their offspring. As such, they go seeking out another magnad to have a child with that has the desired qualities for their children. Then once the child is born, it is taken into the family with the permanent mate, though the other mate may be considered a family friend as they have a child in that family.

While there are many more behavioral traits that could be expanded upon, these are too subtle to notice unless on large scale populations or under very special circumstances.

The Remaining Subspecies are the following.

Lufan: Most similar to baseline humans, though they tend to look like a mixture of all known human races into one and given superhuman qualities.

Bael: Oddest of the subspecies, as they are known to have horns. These horns are an enhancement of the magnad collective as a whole. Usually this ability in the vast majority of the species is very minor, but with the growth of the horns and the neural matrix in them, these magnads can perceive radio waves, electrical and magnetic fields with frightening ease. This makes them startling navigators. Baels are more at home in hotter worlds

Trimidien: An oddly pigmented subspecies. Their skin is the color of very polished chrome and other colorful metals, with the most common coloring being a scarlet violet. Also their hair and eyes are oddly colored and very varied. Hair color can vary between crimson, metallic, silver, pale green, blue and even pink. And their eyes are just as colorful, with their eyes having all assorted bright colored mixtures in their pigmentation. Trimidien prefer planets with exotic atmospheres, geologies and ecosystems, being one of the few subspecies back in the day that had more potent silicate biology.

Innuen: White with white all over and extra white, with a slight dash of black. Their skin is snow white. Their hair is snow white, their eyes are snow white with black sclera. Their whiteness would be unsettling to us sapiens in the modern era. They also sport higher resistances to the cold, being naturally more attuned to it.

Rashanit: In this subspecies, the physical dimorphism traits that male morphs have are inversed with the female ones and vice versa. Meaning that males are faster and more agile, while females are bigger and stronger. Aside from that they are the only ones with red blood, inner tissue and blood, though it's very dark. They produce another radiophage/ pigment which unlike meta-melanin, its iron based and therefore red, this gives their flesh a more crimson coloring. Aside from that, their skin is copper like colored, silver or greyish hair and their eyes are usually bright blue, with red sclera.

Mennos: A nocturnal subspecies, fond of darker places and living in caves. These magnads are pale skinned, with white or black hair and deep red eyes. They also do not follow the standard sexual dimorphism and neither males nor females lack any of their morphs' strength or agility, being a middle ground between the two forms.

Albion: They are black. Like absolute black and black all over. The only exception to this is their eyes which are blood red. In essence, they are Salamanders from 40k, minus the affinity for blacksmithing. An added trait is that they have more developed radiophagic and photosynthetic organs.


AN: I am about close to finishing the first part of Chapter 2. These codexes will be posted between the parts of Chapter 2 and 3. I hope you enjoy the read and if anyone wants to use these inhuman human preterhumans in any omakes or fanfics of their own... then go ahead, have fun.

Oh and the Voting is done, i just haven't actually counted them all. Thank you all for playing a part of this, i hope the future chapters keep you all entertained.

 

[Black-Aengel-01]

Preterhuman

2.0





Unheeded Prophet

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Two protheans stared at the subject in its glass cell. An opaque material that only permits light to travel in a singular direction unless an electrical charge flows through to deactivate its properties and convert it into seemingly normal glass. A further feature is that this room is hermetically sealed and sound proof. No whisper or illness would get in nor out.

The creature inside was prothean. But one unlike any other. This poor, shell shocked creature held a visage that stretch on for infinity, jumping at the slightest movement of the shadows yet unresponsive to sounds. Pale colored, emaciated and curled up in the farthest corner of the room with a look of fear in his eyes. It was the husk of a warrior, one that only held the bare minimum of a mind as much of it had been replaced with unperceivable terror.

"This is what it's left of the entire fleet? A broken shell of a warrior?" The first one wondered out loud, his tone mixed in disbelief and shock.

"Indeed. One could only imagine what horrors he was exposed to while in that planet." Considering that the place that he was found in was covered in the bronze colored dried blood of fellow protheans, one could imagine it was an atrocious event. The protheans may be the greatest species in the galaxy, but they are not infallible and all powerful. If they were, then the galaxy would have been theirs by now.

"You sure we cannot extract anything from him?" The first asked to which the second made a sound akin to a cough. The usual prothean equivalent of shaking their heads as a negative reply.

"Anyone that so much as tries to get anything through the Touch is sent into screaming fits that cause the victim to become catatonic for a few days before awakening with a severe case of amnesia… at best." He frowned ruefully as he thought the implications. Most that recovered were always jumpy afterwards, fearing the shadows and suffering from some horrible cases of nightmares.

Sighing, the first prothean turned to leave. "The Nobility will not be pleased with this, Vorvis."

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On the third day, the prothean in the mental ward still rocked back and forth in his place. Nothing was amiss with him as far as they knew, besides the mental trauma he experienced that became dangerous for others to perceive. He was not terminated though, even while many agreed that it might be a mercy to such a broken and decrepit being. The reason was that he was the only survivor and the High Nobility held hope that he may one day shed some light on the creatures he fought.

Vorvis returned to his post, keeping an eye on his poor mental patient.

The patient's room had remained largely the same. Some toys here and there. A bed, a light and some paper with colored wax rods. Any form of communication with the subject has been met with failure, but the nobility wanted something to sink their teeth in, so further tests are still to be done.

One of the most recent proposals is an old Touch Connection drive, as it is believed that the old device might be able to absorb some data that could be processed without the sheer terror within the prothean's mind, or at least, be able to filter out useful data. The device, which is roughly about the size of a large box, six by six by six units in measurement, is to be shipped in three days' time.

On a side note, research into the technologies of these aliens is right under way. Unfortunately some issues have come up that no one had foreseen. For one, all technology in this galaxy, come from the previous species, the Innussanon, and their came from the race before. This means that all technology in the galaxy is derivative from archaeotech in some manner, and it all follows some patterns yes or yes.

Apparently, these aliens had none of that. Their tech base is unique on itself and shows no usage of Eezo anywhere. And yet surviving footage of the space battles showed that these aliens not only possessed FTL technology, but extremely advanced equipment and weaponry that seemingly defied the laws of physics. Their seeker lasers were the prime example. However, a curious thing came to light when all prothean vessels had their Eezo cores removed. That meant that these aliens had little, to no idea what this substance was and had not encountered it before, which was not possible if they came from this galaxy, as Eezo is everywhere in it.

And that got scholars speculating that these aliens may have derived from another galaxy altogether as their tech showed none of the patterns that all space faring aliens in the galaxy used. Instead seemingly built from the ground up in its entirety, following an entirely different approach on technology. This may have sparked further speculation in the utility of fully self-developed technology over archaeotech, but that was not the topic of this train of though. The issue was that no one knew how to effectively interface with the technology. Most equipment failed most of the time to connect, and what little did manage to interface with it was immediately invaded by malicious software that rendered the device inoperable and was remarkably resistant to hard purges, requiring many simultaneous software cleansing and even then there was a chance the malicious data still lingered.

And that was the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Only Artificial Intelligences could interface with the system and when they did so, oftentimes the synthetics fell into data corruption as these malwares not only managed to infect the AI, but evolved rapidly to try and consume it. Even after they were gone, these aliens are going to make us protheans fight for every inch of their secrets, if any survived the malwares within.

Either, way, it was not Vorvis' business. His was the mental and physical care of his patients. Or in this case; patient, and one of high value at that. Turning to the various sensor feeds in the chamber he skimmed through them all. Video showed the subject sitting on his bed at one of the corners of the room looking at the center of the chamber with a piercing gaze. Normal, he does that most of the time. Thermal showed nothing abnormal. Mass Effect field display showed no use of biotics, which considering the drug that was given to the prothean was normal. Pressure sensors showed a weight in the middle of the….

Vorvis made a take back through the sensors and looked at the pressure sensors. There was… 'weight' in the middle of the room. Like if there was someone seating there. Odd. Must be a glitch in the system. Probably that the patient sat on the place for the whole night and the area became affected.

It was still odd. But nothing a quick check could fix.

He addressed the VI in the room. [Computer, show me the previous night's footage. Speed up by 20 please.] An instant later the room's automated computers produced a hologram of the prothean's request.

It played the same room where the patient was, though with a dim light as it was night time. But slowly, the psychiatrist realized that the subject had not left the bed during the whole night aside from eating. And it was only once. In fact, the traumatized prothean kept his eyes on the spot in the center of the room at every moment in the night when he was awake.

As if there was something there that he needed to keep an eye out. Something that made him uneasy.

Something invisible.

That… that was extremely odd. Vorvis decided to put a request to replace the pressure sensors in the chamber. It must be just a glitch and the prothean in the room is simply mad and it's his imagination. Just a coincidence.

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On the next day, Vorvis looked on at the sensors with considerable unease.

The pressure spot was there still. Even after the systems were fixed and the floor overhauled. Was the patient affecting the plates there? Was he using his biotics? Even if he was under a biotic-inhibitor cocktail, there have been cases where people have used their biotics, even while under their effect, if to a severely limited degree.

But that did not explain how this 'weight' had lingered there for time on end. He checked the logs and this pressure point has remained like that for the entire night. That should not be possible. No one can keep up using their biotic abilities for so long.

This requires further testing.

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Two days later--

Vorvis kept staring at the sensor display. There it was, the same weight. It irked him, and not only him, but the engineering teams. They had no idea what was causing this. The pressure sensors were always picking the exact same anomaly. There was something in there. Something that could not be seen through normal eyes. Yet it did affect the world there somehow. It was weighing down in there.

Something was up.

And Vorvis vowed that he would get to the middle of it. Luckily the Touch Connection Drive would come within the day. Maybe he could get some answers.

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"Please Lotris, place your hand on the Device." Vorvis gently ordered to his patient from within his anti-contact suit, hoping that the prothean would react and do the action on his free volition. He did not, seating still on the bed, staring at the spot in the middle of the room.

Instinctively Vorvis quickly turned to look at the place the other prothean was gazing upon, meeting nothing, but unable to shake an uneasy feeling from crawling up his plates. Nevertheless there was work to be done. So he reached out and grasped the other prothean's hand and gently placed it on the Touch Drive, both surprised and pleased that the patient did not take it away.

That was good. And better, the Drive was not picking up any abnormalities. Of course, Vorvis wouldn't know anything because he couldn't interact with the device and any data that it managed to pick up would need to be sorted and filtered by the AIs after continuous and rigorous analysis by VIs to make certain it couldn't overwhelm the recipient.

Then one of the men at engineering spoke through to Vorvis through the touch. [Vorvis…] There was unease and uncertainty through the touch and the prothean in question regarded the man.

[What is it?] He asked privately. The answer he received, chilled him to his core.

[The anomaly had moved.]

Vorvis' plates ran cold as his four eyes began to look around with barely contained concern. [Where is it?]

The answer, was worse still. [Right next to you.] Vorvis met the other fellow prothean's gaze and followed where it led, right to his left. He couldn't see anything. There was nothing in there. Nothing in the absolute. But some part of his mind, the deeper, more primal part of his mind. The oldest and most instinctive part of his brain told him an entirely different tale. He knew that logically nothing was there. Yet his instincts were telling him that there was something there, standing right next to him. Something unnatural. Something that shouldn't be there. Something that shouldn't exist in this world. And yet it was and it was right next to him. [Sir?] Then the engineer's voice cut through his mind.

"What?" He half whispered, half shouted.

[Lotris… the patient… he's…]

Vorvis felt dread as he heard those words. The other prothean was out of his peripheral vision, yet all he needed to do to see him was to turn his head only slightly. And he feared to gaze the prothean next to him, even if he had laid eyes on him mere seconds ago. But seconds ago, his instincts weren't telling him to run.

He slowly turned and as he did, the broken warrior's gaze was not affixed to the spot next to Vorvis. But instead, all four eyes of the warrior were staring squarely at Vorvis. Four sunken eyes, so deeply staring into his own soul that he was not even sure that the other prothean was actually looking at him through the eyes. It was a gaze so penetrating, so deep, that felt like if he was being watched by something else. Something alien. Something not prothean.

Whole minutes of tense staring passed. Where Vorvis dared not speak. Dared not voice a word. While so, the warrior kept piercing him with his potent stare.

But eventually, the mental health worker succeeded in finding his words. A question that clawed its way out of his mind in spite of how much he did not want to make it exit his lips. "What… what can you tell us?"

Then the engineer communicated, once more, through the Touch. [The anomaly is gone.] Dread sank its talons through Vorvis's plates.

Lotris opened his mouth.

Then spoke. "Ŝăļȟɇȋʼn…" Words in a tongue not of prothean origin. Words that no prothean voice box could ever make. "…ʂʜɨľ ďơƫ ǩʁίṩṉễṁ."

Then darkness overtook the chambers and all systems went silent. Alarm coursed through the minds of all protheans present, regardless of the species they were. Something impossible had just happened and they knew not what. Soldiers tried to engage their low light visibility equipment but found that none of the instruments functioned. Their weapons silent and dead. Yet it was amid this panic that the lights returned and with them visibility into the chamber of the subject.

And in it, stood Lotris Prat, sole survivor of the Massacre by Man, and at his feet, quivering in fear, was Vorvis. His eyes wide as saucers as he met the black pit of Lotris' own.

Then the horrifying prothean spoke, again with a voice not of his own. Distant and dark, and with such honesty and sincerity and fervor, that it might as well as been a shout, had it not been little more than a whisper. "Man's technology, belongs only to man. To think you can master it, is the height of hubris and the road to damnation… and annihilation." A dark chuckle. Pupiless eyes scanned the room, as if looking at things that none could. "They can see us… they are so hungry for our souls…." He reached out, as if about to touch something just out of reach, but abstained from extending his arm completely. "So close… so close… you want to them to cross over? You want them to be within an arm's reach of our minds? Of our souls?" Then he pulled back as he turned to gaze back at Vorvis. "Man's knowledge is cursed… its sin to touch it." Then his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper as he curled back down again, mad grin on his lips as his eyes turned back to normal. "Stay away… stay away… stay away… stay away……"

It was then that the security teams entered the chamber and extracted the psychiatrist while keeping the mad prothean under restraint, even as he did not resist.

Once out of the room, Vorvis took deep calming breaths, trying to draw upon his years of mental study to try and calm himself down. But every time he tried to do so, the memory of what he had just seen came back, flooding his mind with terror.

What had Vorvis just witnessed? And why did he feel utter dread at the implications of the ex-warrior's words?

And how did the prothean cause a total blackout on all equipment?!

Now he knew, that some answers, are better off not knowing.

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As the security videos of all the events transpired, two prothean members of nobility watched on with shock and morbid fascination. "You saw that?"

"Yes." Even if the question was rhetorical, such was the shock and surprise behind the footage that an answer needed to be provided.

"He merely spoke three words and the entire facility shut down for five seconds." There was no EMP field emission detected. No dark matter or energy readings that could indicate something amiss. Only those three words, and the systems shut down. Three words uttered with a voice that had no right to belong in any prothean's mouth.

"That's impossible." Proclaimed the second noble.

"Or is it?"

Disbelief became curiosity and then interest. "What do these aliens hide?"

"What powers did they bestow upon a lowly warrior like him to have such an ability?"

Whatever the answer, it was a power they desired. A power they coveted for. Such is the nature of the Prothean nobility.

"Call the Avatar of Revelations. We might need his expertise."

"This suddenly became all the more interesting."

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AN: Sorry for taking a long on posting this. I was hoping to post it this morning and by the time I finished it was 7:50 PM over here. But at least I managed it before Monday ended… technically speaking.



Oh and the voting is done. Here are the results:

• Trials of Hephadon and Fingers of the Angyl will be a very heavy influence across the galaxy at large.
• Bones of the Dragons not so much, but its existence will be cause a critical event to unfold between ancient enemies.
• Citadel + Terminus (Because it fits very well for the Trials) and the Asari
• The Batarian Hegemony
• Geth Collective + Quarian Admiralty (Fits nicely with the Bones of the Dragon)

I had asked some friends of mine also which they would have picked and I added in their vote. Fittingly and unsurprisingly, the results were very similar to yours.

 

[Black-Aengel-01]

The Duchalan War of Extermination


AN: As you people really wanted to see the Duchala, I decided to post this before the previous events in history. Enjoy.
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Think of the apocalypse, and I can tell you it doesn't describe it. Think of hopelessness, and the words will fail to convey even but a fraction of the horror. You think of a war, of millions upon millions of warriors unleashing weapons of terror upon each other, of vast fleets engaging each other at countless kilometres away, exchanging devastation of unprecedented levels.

It was none of that.

We simply called it a war because we did not want to think of the alternative by calling it by what it really was. It was the apocalypse.

We never should have traveled to that accursed world.

To see a darkness so vast and uncompromising, so impossibly great and all seeing, all powerful, ever present in all of reality that makes you understand the absolute insignificance of your place among the stars. We heard its name. A mass of indecipherable sentient energy that spoke to us. But we could only conceive a fragment's fragment of its identity.

D.U.C.H.A.L.A.

We were there when the small fleet that annihilated us all formed. I saw it. We all did, as one.

Imagine light twisting and bending at impossible angles, creating perpetually shifting geometries made entirely out of photons and electrons. No matter, only ice hard solid light. Hyperpolygons that expanded through countless fractal planes, all designed for total annihilation. And know that it was all created and thought up in the span of a second, and with the same pale emotion that lies when one picks up but a newspaper to swat a fly. Because that was what we were to them… to him/her/it. A large swarm of flies. Flies that needed to die because of our nature.

Flies. And nothing more. Nothing else.

Imagine a silence built out of impossibly colored lights, so profound, so deep and primal that rends the bonds of the atom into nothing. That was their weapon. Eternal, unending, primordial, antithetical silence.

That was their drones' power. The silence that ended all and the beginnings of all made into light.

Each battle lasted little more than a few minutes. Then again it never was a battle. Then the planet fell, decayed into particulate ash. Bathed by a silencing light that denied all physical states of being until all that remained of us was nothing but whispers in the wind and waves of hard radiation.

Ten ships destroyed seventy six worlds before our first weapon to fight them was created.

Sixty three more fell after that before we could implement it and found it wanting.

Forty nine more as we tested it and we made a breakthrough.

When the number of worlds still living was less 450, it was when we finally took the fight back to them. It was a fruitless and hopeless endeavor, but back then, we felt, we needed, to die screaming and shouting against oblivion. We fought one of the drones alone, cutting away at reality itself and deleting the physical and nonphysical universe to slice at the constructs of hyperangonal light. Then, when the unholy, baleful light fell silent and dark, it was at long last that our hope elevated. We felt like we could do something against these monsters. These unholy abominations of paranormality that demanded for our total annihilation.

Then we headed towards our enemy, our arms ready to fight for the right of existence.

It all ended there.

Have you ever seen space bend and twist, like the aesthetically pleasing accretion disk of a black hole? It's beautiful, in every wrong way imaginable. You see the stars change their hue as they twist and extend, becoming unlike the super-dense orbs of plasma that they were. The life within and without, stellar borne creatures of impossible size and forms, swim out like if they were moving through an ocean, possessing colors non-existent to reality. The planets falling behind, emerging from inverse reality wells. Life itself become freed from its limitations and become something else infinitely more than even our greatest works of living engineering. To see oceans of exotic particles, forming twisting multidimensional bones as dark matter turned into sentient tissue, animated by crystalline plasma and surrounded by a corona of planets, nebula and cosmic storms. You see space and time and breath and height and length and all of the other eleven dimensions of natural fractal space re-orientate into a perfectly symmetrical and unnatural entity of stellar proportions. You see the empyrean blur its distance between the void of stars and all other states of causality merge into one and all.

They weren't physical beings swimming through space and time. Not conceptual forces given form and thought.

There were no words that could describe what we witnessed. And even then our memory was harmed by the sight.

We realized what the Duchala were. They were space and time itself given sentience. Undimentional, unlimited, all present in the past, the present and in the in-between. Ever changing, yet static at the same time. They were a paradox and a perfect equation. They were life in all its forms and none. Nature itself, yet unbound by any of its laws.

A vast, sentient omni-fractal dimension playing by its own rules and laws crawling within the realm of this universe itself.

We do not know how long the advance fleet lasted. Seconds, hours, days, eons? We do not know. We only felt their touch end as the Duchala's tendrils of unreality made contact.

And the silencing of ten trillion souls throughout nearly a hundred worlds.

Hope shattered and we changed our tactic. The Obscurus already were doing their plan of escape. But we needed to buy them time.

We severed our connection to the networks, and began spreading like a mad virus out into the galaxy again. We colonized every world we could, to slow down the coming Drones.

It was the wise choice, because now thirty nine of those things were flying around the galaxy, eliminating every world infested by man.

By the time the Exile Fleet were finished, only forty three worlds had remained, Mother Terra included.

When we fled into the depths of the Void of Dreams, we changed our memories, we altered the nightmare into something we could manage. We erased much of ourselves and those who had died before us. But we did not forget them. And the memories of the horrors we endured we sealed them in memory containers as a reminder of what could be out there.

A reminder of what we will all be.

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[meloa789]

@Black-Aengel-01 I hope you like this omake.


The Human Condition



As scholars, discussions and disputes pertaining to the "human condition" take a lot of space, even compared to more significant matters related to management of affairs and developing or upgrading the individual and the community to suit ever progressing conditions. Interpretations and formalities of the "human condition" may differ on a case-by-case basis. However in form, it relates to the same narrative structure and response.

"Human condition" describes the state of mankind within either static or fluid, which under certain contexts can either mean the steady degradation of the race into a state of depravity and ruin, a fragmented ascension that may either result in stagnation with a divided humanity or a united humanity ascending without any hinges. However, there are very rare cases in which the ascension is complete, yet fragmented along a duality, and that ascension is prompted by an eldritch patron.

Eldritch patrons usually either toy with mortal races or outright abuse them malevolently. It is rarely seen or completely unseen for an entity defying logic and sanity to have a vested interest in the transcendence of a race that is for all intents and purposes beneath its attention and capabilities. And yet it happened.

While its real name was completely incomprehensible, the pronouncable name of "Obscurus" described a fragment of its real intentions. On surface, the being had a complete interest in the ascension of mankind, yet the reasons for it doing so are completely obscured behind a veil of complete darkness. For all we know, Obscurus might have done it fort he hell of it.

The result of its experiments are as alien as itself, yet the dominant human psyche and an attachment to forms of past make some deductions nearly recognizable. For instance, artifacts of great power and mind boggling properties are akin to video games for them. Their methods of offense, infiltration and intimidation, even with all of the sorcery and alien form surrounding them, carry traces of human culture which can be easily identified by careful eyes. Easily identified, and yet no means to counter them. Or maybe we don't want to counter them.

On the other hand, on the other side of the coin, there is something else. Something beyond the visage and potency of Obscurus. Something even more insane and logic defying than this version of humanity. Something hungry and madness-inducing.

To give it a name is feeble and fruitless. The only fragment before their brains were haywired baffled us even more: The Duchala. What is even more baffling is that they too have traces of humanity, however slim they are.

These two instances should have been impossible in another lifetime. Yet they happened. And the walls holding them back are becoming ever thinner. The effects are felt by all instances of humanity in existence. We hear the song calling us to embrace the greatest destiny. The song is heard by xenos too, no matter how faint it is.

Farseers in the surviving Craftworlds are convulsing and spasming at the sight of things that are even more revulsing and alien than the Ruinous Powers. Their fallen cousins in Commorragh are holding their heads in pain, deprived from pleasure at times. Their human slaves laugh at them with a sensation mocking their glory. And there are times that these slaves are vanished from their cells completely, without any trace.



The Orks are hearing the call of a war not like any other, just as they have desired during their whole lifetimes, yet some part of their fungal nervous systems tell them that this is a war that they are definitely going to lose. The C'tan shards in possession of the remaining dynasties are cowering in fear, the reason unknown to their captors, yet awakening something close to curiosity and wariness in their soulless cold shells. The captive beneath Mars can only stay silent in contemplation.

In the lobes of Tau, senses of inevitable extinction are surging. The hive mind of the Tyranids has a surge in its synapses that halts the endless hunger for the first time in many years.

And no one knows what is happening. No one… except him.

He would awaken from his torturous stupor after what amounts to eons, in a ruined church. He would instantly recognize the church. It was the last church that he would burn on his path to relieve mankind from religion. And it was here that he would have that discussion to affirm his beliefs.

"It looks the same as you have left it."

He would turn his attention towards the source of the raspy voice. A very thin man wearing a pitch black business suit and glasses.

"Which party do you represent foul creature?"

The old thin man would sigh.

"No need for profanities my dear friend. As for your question, let's just say I am an intermediator between both interpretations."

"No surprise, your essence stinks of both of them."

Suddenly, the old man would instantly appear right in front of the man wearing the golden armor, bearing the symbol of Aquilon.

"And yet, you, for all of your grand might, can't deduce what I really am."

The man in golden armor would breath heavily, something he hadn't done for many millennia. The old man would walk towards the altar, looking up to the orange sky.

"You can hear the song, can't you? And you hear every note, every frequency, every rhythm, more intense than the others?"

"I can hear it. I know what you want to do and I am not going to allow it."

The old man would turn towards the other man.

"Hmph. In your current state, it is a bit impossible."

Walking towards the man known as the God Emperor of Mankind he would say "For you being such a master of deceit and manipulation, it is a bit discouraging to see that for once the threads are taken from you. Are you out of touch? Or maybe you are losing confidence."

The Emperor would extend his armored hand, strangling the old man.

"You can't force ascension upon mankind. Not like this."

The old man would only laugh, appearing right behind the Emperor.

"And your methods seem to work wonders. Your Imperium is crumbling right around you, besieged from all sides. Your sons are either dead, missing or fallen. The End Times are knocking right at your door. You believe yourself to be undainted, master of every possible angle and consequence. And yet, deep down at your very core you know that you are as much as fallible as all humans are."

The Emperor would suddenly shout.

"You don't know me! I have already made contingencies for every possible occasion. If you arrive, you will ruin all of it!"

"On contrary, when one of the parties arrive, or even both of them arrive, none of them will be necessary. And all of them will be powerless to stop it. That includes you, even if you become the Fifth."

The Emperor would be silent for a long while.

"I visited you, just to tell you that there is no point in resisting us. The ascension will happen one way or another. Either by the hands of the ones that still retained some semblance of humanity. Or either by the hands of the ones that transcended all conceivable notions."

 

[Black-Aengel-01]

-INITIATING DIRECT TELEMETRIC-PSYCHIC LINK-

FROM: CERBERUS DIRECTOR, THARN HARP, ID C.3-M071D9-FF83HT6-W03-77ZXS-207F.

TO: XENO-ANALYSIS RESEARCH TEAM GAMMA.

SUBJECT: Protheans.



Seriously Harp? Why are you calling us now? The full Prothean report will be done in a day or so. We still have much to go through. Seriously, we can only give you partial data on it. You don't care, you just want it with you already?

What the Void, fine, we'll comply. So where should we begin?

The basics, right.

So, Protheans. From what we managed to gleam from the bodies and tech we recovered, we are dealing with the dominant power in the galaxy and we just threw down the gauntlet on them. Lucky we have longer range FTL than them and metatech or else we would be in a world of hurt. Might even be forced to fire up the Empyreal Deep Dive Drives and jump to another galaxy.



Anyhow…Biology:

Protheans are a carbon based, humanoid race of pseudo-arthropoidal creatures with a two caste system being part of their actual species (more on that later) that derive from the world of Nerr Atrined, which roughly translates as Origin of Principality (Pretentious much). We say pseudo-arthropoidal because they have, or rather had, both an endo and exoskeleton, though natural selection had pushed the organisms into loosening the exterior skeletal frame and converted it into armor plates across their body, but unlike actual arthropods, they have an active breathing system, and efficient cardiovascular organs.

Remember the exoskeleton and endoskeleton? Good, because this is where it starts getting nice. Prothean exoskeleton armor is made from protein polysaccharides not too dissimilar to chitin, but it is also rich with polarized silicon which is a very inert, heat resistant, flexible polymer. Meaning that these buggers are tough and can take a serious beating and have great environmental resistance. Though not as much as a fully adapted magnad. They don't have all the redundant systems and highly adaptive biology we do. These exo-plates are mainly found on the head, neck and body, providing protection to most crucial organs and they can retract their head into their shoulders slightly for protection. The endoskeleton though isn't that impressive, aside from the bones having hollow pockets to make them slightly lighter than us.

The skin can be a pale blue-gray or brown color mottled with muted yellow spots and is filled to the brim with specialized receptors which are the basis for their unique ability (which we will discuss below) and are most prevalent on their hands and tongue. Their hands each have three fingers, and their feet each have two widely-spaced toes.

Prothean blood is colored red, but it isn't iron based. Rather, it's actually a pigment that blocks radiation that freely flows through the system. If you remove that pigment though, their blood turns into a nice golden ichor. On a biochemical and genetic level, these creatures have a strange CMS (Coding Molecule System) that is very distinct from DNA, one which operates on a quad-strand structure, where two of these strands are designed for protecting the actual coding strands from chemical and radiation damage, further reinforcing that these aliens are well adapted to a high radiation environment. Their protein chains are also surprisingly resistant to anomalous folding meaning that they do not suffer from prion diseases.

They are also naturally 'biotic' and most disturbingly, also a psionic species. This will be elaborated further under abilities.

As for senses, they have quite the package. They possess two pairs of eyes with each eye possessing dual pupils, and three pairs of nostrils. Each pair of eyes, as well as their nostrils, operate by processing different information independently from the rest. For instance, the larger eyes are focused entirely on processing the black/white spectrum and movement, providing them superb night vision, while the exterior eyes only process colors (Red, Green, Blue, UV and a few other spectrum). Collectively, they have a very acute sense of vision. Touch is heightened, but pain is not. In fact it is very likely that Protheans have higher pain tolerance than an untrained organic. As for hearing, Prothean hearing is done via fluid filled cavities at either side of the head, and is not that sensitive though.

Now for the Castes, this will also be talked about significantly in the psychology and culture section, but an overview, the species has two castes (outside from the assimilated races) we have the Netraad (translates to High Breed, but we are just gonna call them Nobles) and the Ortraad (Translates to Common Breed, or Normies).

The Netraad are larger, stronger and much smarter than the Ortraad caste and are genetically predisposed to be the rulers of the Prothean society. They also have the strongest biotic abilities and psychic powers among the race. The Ortraad are the common folk, the basic description we discussed above. Nobles have larger head plates, grown to the point that they become an actual crest. Nobles are usually white skin with light colored plates and darker eyes than their lower born brethren.

Expanding into lifespans, Protheans have a natural lifespan greatly surpassing Sapiens, with the Normies living about two hundred and fifty and only beginning to suffer from the degenerative effects of aging at their two hundred year mark, while the Nobles go beyond, to the four hundred year life span, but suffer from aging comparatively much sooner at roughly the three hundred year margin. Though medical anti-aging treatments counter these effects. Pretty impressive, though not that much when compared to us who are biologically and functionally immortal.

Prothean sexes and reproduction is not exotic in any way. They are bigendered and give birth to live young. Though unlike us, they do not find much pleasure in the act of sexual intercourse and the offspring's gender is not dependent on genetics, but environmental pressures like those of Terran reptiles. Females are nearly identical to males with the few indicative differences being a shorter frame and longer arms… as well as the reproductive organs. Oh and males' penis is long (+ or – 45cm) can move like a tentacle… gross. Adding to the report, females have a gestation period of our standard year and give birth to two offspring.



Psychology and Culture.

We have some data here and there, but culture is basically bare bones and we will only include some data on it, just for you to know Harp.

Now that we are done with that, let's move on to the most challenging part; xeno-behavior. We had to do several bio-simulations of the species, and steal data from their neural cortexes through psi-nanite injection. As a consequence to low data, we do not have much to go on, but a picture has formed regarding what we are dealing with. Hint, it isn't good.

Prothean mentality and culture revolves around a hierarchy based upon the foundations of dominance and proof of skill and power, touched upon by a Darwinistic attitude towards life. This can be said as the following. If two Protheans were to meet, they will immediately make a hierarchy through the Touch, analyzing each other and he who proves greater takes the lead on all actions and the inferior gladly and happily lets the greater take control. But this does not mean that the inferior will not try to up his superior by improving itself until it can supersede its fellow. In fact this is a central part of their psychology, each individual always trying to claim a higher and higher place on the ladder. Either through intellect, strength or cunning.

And this mentality is applied to other species as well. If you are not strong enough to claim your manifest destiny among the powers in the galaxy then you do not deserve it. End of the argument.

Ironically, this isn't some quirk of domination for the evulz, but it is… from their twisted point of view… a good thing for the subjugated species.

The Protheans justify this cultural reconditioning by claiming that if the races who opposed them were actually stronger than the Protheans, then they would take the Protheans' place as the galaxy's dominant civilization, and the Protheans would have no issue with this at all. It was in keeping with their belief that evolution, or the 'Cosmic Imperative' as they termed it, was the prime driving force of life in the universe and that the strong must flourish by dominating the weak for the greater good of all. Keep that in mind. They do not want to dominate us because they want us dead or enslaved, but because they believe it's the right thing to do!

This is further brought to evidence by the fact that while the Protheans are the higher Caste members of society (High and Middle caste is almost exclusively dominated by the Protheans themselves while Low caste is delegated to the subjugated aliens species), various aliens species have shown skills that allow individuals to rise into higher castes and the Protheans consider them worthy of every ounce of respect they claim. It's weird… but it makes some twisted sense…

The reason why the Protheans dominate the higher castes is because they are stronger, smarter and more skilled than the other races under them. But even so, those beneath are not treated like slaves at all, even if they are looked down upon by those above. It's weird. A society like that in the old sapiens species would quickly fall to corruption and abuse, but these guys managed to pull it off. Comes to show that aliens are indeed alien. Just like we would be for them, a harmonious egalitarian collective like ours is practically impossible for them to accomplish.

Protheans have no issue with eating even other sapient life forms, not surprising given their cannibalistic tendencies. Yeah, you heard that, no this isn't an exaggeration Harp, they are cannibals, and despite what you may think, it makes sense. Read the Abilities part and it will make sense. As a result, when one of their numbers die, they are usually consumed so that the individual's skills and memories are preserved, culturally granting the diseased a form of immortality by passing on their lives to the living. This ties to their olden day religions, where it was seen as the highest form of honor and grandeur among them to be consumed by as many as a population as possible, making the dead forever remembered in the hearts and minds of the living, becoming a strange form of ancestor worship. Also, as a consequence, it is a great honor for a member of the lower castes to be eaten by one of a higher one after their deaths. Not eating your ancestors, friends or family when they pass is seen as the highest act of disrespect and barring special circumstances would warrant excommunication from the rest of their community.

The Protheans designated certain individuals as Avatars, or exemplars, of particular traits or acts: Battle, Knowledge, Cunning, etc, and they mentally alter themselves to excel at this one aspect of their choosing. It is an act not taken lightly and those who choose to walk this path are seen with an odd mixture of pity and awe. But likewise anyone who leaves this path of life is seen as weak and a disgrace of untold proportion among their people and ostracized until their act of failure is washed away by cleansing their own life from existence through ritual suicide. Harsh. Also, Avatars are only allowed to consume a fellow Avatar and only of a compatible embodiment (Vengeance and Battle, War and Annihilation, Knowledge and Truth, are close enough for this to happen), though in the past it was only of the exact same trait. Eating an Avatar of another embodiment is seen as a terrible crime and punishable with execution. A disgraced Avatar's body isn't eaten in any circumstances though.

Also Protheans practice selective breeding and has resulted in the separation of the commoner and high caste into two subspecies. Subspecies so utterly different that you would be excused for believing them entirely different creatures. And we don't mean physically (though there are no shortage of differences there either) but psychological. Ortraads are pretty similar to us, once you separate all those little quirks that make them different from humans. They can feel love, loss, sympathy, fear, have desires and a sense of self similar to our own (more or less). Guilt is a bit weird though. But aside from that we could have a normal argument with each other… if we can prove to be on a similar level of 'power' to them and ignore their cannibalistic tendencies.

Netraads though, these are scary, and here is one of the reasons why they are the High Breed Caste. These Superprothean monsters are utterly fearless (They are incapable of feeling fear, like at all!!) and while they do have self-preservation instincts, they face death smiling and laughing and will not, I repeat, will not break under any circumstance. Read addendum 4.77 B where Shin Arata (one of our few remaining Engels) had to spend nearly twenty minutes hunting that Noble down and still the bloody bastard managed to deny us a body to work with by disintegrating himself with what they call a warp. They have a single purpose drive to dominate and become superior at whatever they deem (Which has resulted in various dynasties, each focusing on a particular niche to play in society.) and will not stop until they die or are at the very top of the food chain and even then they have to work to maintain their place in society from other rivals. And worse of all, they seem to use their immense biomancy to guide their civilization to whatever they see as the right course of action. When the Netraads set themselves to do something then they will accomplish it, no matter how much blood and sweat is spilled and only crushing them completely would make them stop. And to make matters more interesting, a Netraad in the field makes all other Protheans fight just as fiercely and fearlessly as the bastard himself and his elimination is not a guarantee that the unit will break. And when one dies, they are devoured by as many people as possible, ensuring his will lives on through his subjects forevermore. This is how the High Breed Caste as ruled uncontested for millennia, though sheer power, strength, cunning and manipulation. Do not underestimate the nobles. Ever.

Various Netraad Dynasties include, but not limited to, the Borhnaat (Bloodthirsty warriors, the whole lot of them), Aigdotha (Mad scientists 90% of the time and abstract LSD artists the other 10% of the time), Nyneeba (Navy captains of and void masters), Urgaraada (Traders and administrators), Lephet (Genetic specialists and socio-cultural experts (and manipulators)), etc… There are also mythological Dynasties like Rureiel and Balgaroth, but I have no data on them.

And this is the problem we find ourselves. We did not win against them, not in their eyes. They made a miscalculation and loss and that can admit to that, but not until we prove, beyond every shadow of doubt, our own superiority and strength to them they will not stop until we are subjects to them.

What we faced? That probe that entered our system reported back and told them that we did not have any Eezo. Because many of our transmission technologies use the metaphysical principles, they were not able to deduce that we were so advanced, so they brought in a token force to subjugate us, thinking we were some bumbling primitives.

Well…now that they know, they will treat us accordingly. As a fully fledge interstellar empire and will bring their full might to bear.

Thankfully or FTL drives have longer reach and our tech is considerably more advanced than theirs. By the time they find us, if they ever do, we will have the power to demonstrate them without a shadow of doubt that we are not to be trifled with.

We will still use the rules of the Grendel Conventions though Harp, so no matter how satisfying is to see some imperialistic crazies get invaded by extra-dimensional monsters, we are not doing planned Meta-incursion into their worlds. It's not nice to them and we would be forced to clean that mess up afterwards.



Abilities.

Okay, we have two things to work with. We will begin with the thing that is the newest stuff for us. Biotics. We… we just got our hands on this substance, and we have very little idea what it is. But Taroth Auphilon proposed that this is an actual hybrid particle that exist partially in-between the Realspace and the Terminus Obscure, but it is also strangely psycho-reactive in a way that we have not seen before. More details attached. Anyway, this strange exotic substance seems to be exclusive to this galaxy and allows the creatures of this region of the universe to manipulate the dark energy and dark matter that permeates the Terminus Obscure and phase it into Realspace. In other words, it allows them to manipulate gravity, distort the phase state of particles and alter their mass-speed ratios and how they are subjected to the laws of Realspace in ways we never have seen before. Heck, we have only begun scratching the absolute tip of this monumental iceberg and the possibilities could be endless. And the Protheans seem to be very skilled at this. It allows them to play the game of sorcerers even if what they are doing is completely different and unrelated. (Take note that even Herma Mora got his ass handed to him for a while and had to use the Closed Hand Technique. And let's not forget what Daviel En-Matt was subjected to and what Shin Arata had to do to catch that High-Breed.) We should see if we can incorporate some of these tricks into our own military.

Now… this is the part that should get you all worked up. Protheans (and from what we can tell, a whole lot of species in this galaxy) are a psionically active. To be more precise, they are psychometric biomancers. The entire lot of them are! This means they can tell a whole host of details from any organic life form they encounter by a mere touch. And take note that a large demographic of species in the galaxy have these abilities, but only the actual Protheans themselves have it so extensively enhanced to the point of consuming skills, knowledge and abilities from one another through consumption, ergo the immense significance of cannibalism in their culture. But this is not the only ability this psionic power grants them, and the High Breed Caste has expanded it upon to be able to guide the will of those beneath and even have a frightening insight in the processes of biology. And more so, despite the fact that they may not know much about the finer reasons why their abilities work, they have managed to replicate it upon their machines, meaning that their Artificial Intelligences have the same (if somewhat reduced) abilities as the organics. Talk about innovative…



Technology:

Ask Marathi for more data on that. But a simple overview is that while it is sturdy and reliable and operates on principles we haven't encountered before, ours beat theirs by a decent margin, especially more so when we take into account our understanding of metaphysics.

To give you an example. Let's take their plasma weaponry.

It operates by… sigh, okay, short summary. It uses these 'Mass Effect' fields to rapidly charge and excite the particles within a condensed canister of ionized gasses and metals. Then it launches them at supersonic speeds through a narrow field corridor, causing a potent explosion of radiation and heat at the point of impact. But check this, while many components are analogous to our own plasma weapons, they require this Eezo substance to accomplish their task and release the ionized particles in the form of a projectile at a distance considerable for ranged combat.

Ours, on the other hand, can easily do without this Mass Effect field and while they would lack the range the Prothean plasma analogues possess, that is easily rectified by our usage of metaphysics and basically reprograming the laws of the material universe to bend over and do what we want. Ergo, we can put several times more range, power and accuracy than whatever they can produce with our understanding alone. When we begin taking in their designs… well… let's say that getting a bolt of solidified uranium plasma to the face would be the least of their worries.

However… thanks to their biomancy, we should be seeing a species with a frightening degree of biotechnology. Though none which could affect us greatly since we have redundancies to redundancies among other things.



Threat Level:

As we are now, considerably high as they could drown us in numbers.

If we get a chance to properly develop back to a stable population number and build our fleets and legions? They are a minor threat.

…?

Our technology only works for us yes but… cloning us with the bio samples that remain in Mundus? Yeah, I really doubt it Harp, cloning a cybrex like me is a pain in the ass, imagine a magnad. Or worse, a void wyrm.

Sure, they may be skilled with biology, but one can only clone any one of us if they knew the right alchemical formulae to catalyze the partial metaphysical nature of our biology. The Protheans don't have the tech, knowledge, skill or psionic power to do so. Much less the ability to tap into the Void of Dreams. So no Harp. I really doubt that they would be able to clone us.



---------------------MEANWHILE IN OROSIA--------------------------

P: Our research into cloning has yielded nothing! If the crazy fool's words are true-

I: We have little reason to believe the contrary. Much evidence points to him being correct and the technology of these… preterhumans, being designed to interface exclusively with them on a level we cannot comprehend. Many even believe it may be on some mystical level also.

P: Please, don't tell me you have bought that garbage!

I: Garbage or not, we are having great difficulty explaining what that invisible… thing that accompanies him is. So far it has eluded every attempt at study. It's nonphysical, immaterial, but we all know is there. It defies all reason by existing, yet it still persists in its presence right before us. Even Itradima Aigdotha herself has no clue on how to begin explaining the 'Ghost'.

P:…… I have an idea.

I: I'm listening.

P: Read this. I want you to bring her to us.

I: … You're insane. That crazy bitch is absolutely yvarrshit insane! Avatar of the Flesh or last member of the House of Ruleiel, that woman cannot be trusted either way! You know what her House did! Or how she killed every single one of them! May the Ancestors preserve my blood and bone, you are insane to take her out of her cell.

P: I know. But she is what she is; the best of all gene-crafters in the entire galaxy. Bring her to us. If there is someone who can unravel the mysteries of these alien's annoying biology, it's her. If not, then all our plans to deciphering this tech are gone.

I: How do I entice her? She isn't in the best terms with anyone and she has refused to aid expand our knowledge in biology. In fact she has modified herself using unknown technologies to make her flesh not only venomous, but mentally corruptive as well.

P: Not just corruptive. It overwrites your mind with an imperfect copy of her own.

I: ……You're telling me that those weren't just myths?

P: No. It is why we haven't executed her and still keep her alive, in the hopes of ever uncovering how she did it. She is the best of us all, but she cares not for any besides herself and her research. Ergo, why she is forever sentenced to an eternity in prison.

I: …… Alright, how do I get her to work for us?

P: I will handle most of the talking. But, give her these, sort of a…incentive to work with us.

I: Genetic samples of the preterhuman species?

P: If there is one thing that can spur her into action is a challenge. I have read her profile, she will not resist the temptation.

I:… Yes milord.

-----------Three weeks later-----------------------------------

Dark gates opened as he was permitted entry into the Penitentiary World of Lomis Dat, the place where they kept the worst of the worst in the entire galaxy.

As he and his entourage of Blackbane giards walked through the hallways and elevator passages containing the most dangerous rogue minds of fellow Protheans of all castes and those of enemy aliens, the prothean reached the level labeled EEE. The lowest depth in the facility of Lomis Dat, within these cells were the kings among the insane and criminal in sheer terms of wickedness and malevolence.

And now, he was headed to one, if not the worst of them all. EEE-AR 142.

He motioned to the Blackbane guards to open the cell and watched as the seals were opened for the first time in ages. Dark metal steel doors opened, letting fresh air come into the black, dark cell. The air within stale and dry. Devoid of life and saturated with sterile chemicals to deny the inmates within any sense of the outside.

He saw her. Her perfect white skin and silvery carapace glimmering in the limited light that entered. Her body refined to such an absolute perfection despite the decades without a proper meal. Such perfect beauty bound and shackled to such a malevolent mind. Now he saw why many fell for her at first sight. How her perfect, red eyes were seen with such exotic beauty that defied reason and demanded love to be given to them at every moment. Love she used to conduct her cruel experiments. Love she greedily consumed and used to ensnare and dominate.

But he knew that it was the dark allure of such a creature. He could tell it from the Touch. She wasn't hiding her malevolent aura, did not need to.

"Mhm… a visitor coming to see lil' old me?" She purred. "How may I be of service my dear boy?" She hummed. "Wait, so you're Perferix's little assistant?" He froze. "My, and he has an offer for me. Do show me the bait, my dear Ibrimeth."

He was horrified. There was no contact, nothing. No means of using the Touch, not one that he knew was possible and yet, this woman… this thing already knew everything…… it was impossible.

But then again… this was the reason why she was so feared.

He said nothing and simply placed the three data shards containing the genetic material of the three Preterhuman races on the floor. Then one of the guards used an extended rod to take them to her while maintaining as much distance from her as possible. Such was her infamy that no living being was allowed within seven units from her cell.

She wordlessly collected and examined them, analyzing them closely with her crimson eyes. Then she took one and opened her mouth, letting out her long tongue and made contact with the shard. And then the strangest thing happened.

Ibrimeth had taken three weeks to get the credentials and travel to Lomis Dat. In those three weeks he had been familiarizing himself with the creature he was staring at, and in every depiction of her, he always saw her smiling. It was not that there were the only images of her he researched, no, it was the fact that never once, has this woman expressed anything else, than a knowing smile.

Not once since she became the Avatar of Flesh.

But now, Ibrimeth and all the accompanying guards were staring in shock at her, as for once, they saw her show an expression of something else. Something they never could have envisioned in their whole lives.

Shocked wonder.

There was genuine, unbidden awe in her eyes. As if she was beholding the Aramma Datra itself. And she could not contain it.

Tears slowly began to trickle down her eyes as a reverence filled smile slowly tugged upon her lips.

Not wasting a single second she released the shard and went for the next one, only to be left aghast once again. And then when she took the last one, the one that Ibrimeth knew was the one that contained the Wyrm gene sequence and he actually was starting to believe his eyes were lying to him.

For she was openly crying. Tears of joy.

She, the most dangerous Prothean Netraad in present history, she the most sadistic and murderous monster in the galaxy, the horror made flesh and embodiment of evil in the universe, was genuinely happy.

"To have the chance to live in an age as filled with great wonders as this. Never once in my life have I had the joy of experiencing such beauty as this…" She said. Her voice cowed with the knowledge she had witnessed. "Say no more… for you have my undying loyalty and support." Those were words of absolute truth. "I, Athame of house Ruleiel, will follow your command and wish, until the end of my times. All for this, all for the chance to unravel the secrets of the flesh of these beings!" She proclaimed and bowed. "I will not disappoint you… I cannot! For to be handed such a gift as an opportunity like this demands equal greatness of loyalty as a reward!"

There and then fate had been decreed.





And somewhere far in the void of space, in a ship built upon foundations of paranormal technology, Director Tharn Harp sneezed.

-----------------------------------------------

AN: Sorry for not posting anything in a while. Life has come back with a vengeance and I want to finish all the Codexes first before I move on with the story. Also, my other story has taken a bit of my attention lately, but haven't gotten the chance to do anything much thanks to uni.

Hope you like this little Codex/story expansion. And I hope I made the protheans suitably alien.

 

[Black-Aengel-01]

Preterhuman

2.1


--Line--


Spinning through the tackles void of space, a space station orbited the galactic currents in its eternal orbital free fall. Its black and grey hull, decorated with the gold, green and white trim aesthetics indicative of the Prothean Empire.

Surrounding this station spinning in empty space, a small fleet of vessels maintained their dedicated vigil for any divergences in the norm. Their orders were simple and straight forward, should any of the contingencies fail to contain what is within, they should make use of their full arsenal to destroy everything. Everyone who worked within the station knew this. They knew their task and their purpose and the risk of failure.

The source of all these contingencies and security protocols set in place were none other than the most dangerous criminal mastermind and sadistic scientist in the entire Prothean Empire. Athame Ruleiel.

"Yrss' El da'ah naithre temphemot uo!" The near frantic shouts of a mad woman echoed across the research chambers, the sounds of her voice like that of broken glass and weeping chalk on a board. Her arguments counter discussion returning to her with equal amounts of zeal and vindication both in speech form and Touch.

"Io!! Nos'tr el de ed na Yrss' A!" It was another copy of her mind in another body. Another her, arguing with herself over the research they were so deeply invested in. But it was not a mere argument between twin minds in different bodies. This was a heated debate between ever increasingly divided factions born of a single being. And there were over sixty individual copies desperately trying outshouting each other.

The reasons for such extreme division in ideologies were the many hundred impossibilities that each was seeing, and how each and every single one of them saw them differently. The genetic material of the each of the pretersapiens was far and above the realm of possibilities. A paradoxical machine of chemistry, particles and coding operating though indecipherable algorithms of non-Euclidean principles and nonsensical, uncrackable mathematics. An anomaly and a profanity against all that they knew about the universe, but one so glorious and beautiful that no one could have ever conceived of it.

From a monitoring room watching down from a vantage point, seventeen security personnel were watching the scene unfold. For the newest members of the security detail, it seemed that the shouting match would devolve into a battle of claws any minute now, seeing the sheer fanaticism in the voice of each of the creatures bellow.

Yet those who have been here for more than a month could easily tell that despite appearances, this was rather cordial, and no matter how heated the debates became, not once had they devolved into anything resembling a bloodbath.

There was one thing that unified the many groups of bellow in their near insane passion; something so transcendental that no one else besides them cold hope to grasp and that necessitated the creation of a whole new language to explain the esoteric sciences the copies of the being were conducting. Such was their fervour. Such was their zeal. Such was the need to understand the work of something that may truly be divine. It was to understand the Preterhuman biology.

However, those who have been keeping an eye on Athame and her copies since the ten years they have been at work, felt something else.

Unease.

Fear.

They were there since the beginning. They have seen her slowly and deliberately devolve into rambling insanity that despite all logic to the contrary was slowly and ever so slightly making sense. It was a madness that kept, despite all reason, beginning to produce results. Of all research teams working in the Preterhuman sciences, they were the only one showing results.

Results that were equal to the most horrid of nightmares.

"They still at it?" Ibrimeth asked, seeing the recent verbal battle and taking note of this being one of their longest spats.

"Seventeen hours milord." One of the guards responded, "By the Ancestors, they are insane." Ibrimeth snorted. Of course they are, this is Athame of House Ruleiel who we they were talking about. That woman was the epitome of lunacy. Except she may now be pushing the goal post in terms of insanity.

"That we can agree upon."

Ibrimeth had seen enough of these antics of hers and was about to take his leave when suddenly.

"STOP!!!" Athame's voice reverberated throughout the room. Loud enough that the speakers in the security room suffered from auditory feedback. That alone caught the attention of Ibrimeth and he opted to stay a while longer and see what had caused the source of their headaches to become so agitated. "El sh'srr un ada vel rheth be." Not that he would be able to understand her nonsense, but he could see from her expressions that she was amidst the cusp of further insights. "Non ui sudikhan…." And when her words exited her white lips, she reached it. "…..Non ui sudikhan! Shire!" She repeated, and this time the entire collection of copies became wide eyed at the realization they all suffered. "IT'S NOT BIOLOGY!!" She exclaimed, much to the confusion of everyone in the security detail. "No… it's much more than that…. Its perfection…" She voiced those words with complete awe.

She did not waste a single second running for the interrogation room. Her every stride one of purpose and of exhilaration.

"Well… I guess that is my cue." Ibrimeth muttered, getting the curious attention of those in the room. "If you'll excuse me." And he disappeared into a nearby elevator headed for the interrogation room.

When he entered the chamber he paused for a second to examine it. It was a bit bigger than before, more heavily armoured than the last time he and Athame had seated on opposite sides of the tempered opaque glass window. Apparently when she threw her fit months ago and demonstrated to everyone just how much stronger she was than a regular Netraad, even without her biotics, it was decided to reinforce the walls and doors, as well as any other means she could use to escape.

Even if she had, for her entire stay, done nothing to show she desired to leave her predicament behind. Then again, she may be doing this until she achieves her personal mission and once she succeeds she may attempt to escape and wreak untold havoc, necessitating the destruction of the base to ensure her wicked malevolence doesn't escape into the wider galaxy. But that is a line that must be crossed when the time comes though, as she is far too precious to lose at this point.

Ending his musings, Ibrimeth finally seated on a chair and pressed a button to make the hardened glass transparent. The sight on the other side was that of an ecstatic snow white woman with blood red eyes staring at him as if she had found the Aramma Datra itself… and then the Tablet of Litatromis Douiesut.

"I believe you had a moment of epiphany." He commented to which Athame snorted.

"Such limited words cannot begin to describe what I am feeling." Oh he could imagine. In fact he can feel some of the excitement exuding from her though the Touch Sensitive Telemetric Link he had installed in the chamber. Limited of course, no one wants to have that crazy bitch mind shackle them out of nowhere.

"I know…" He leaned forwards. "So… what do you have for me?"

"I'm volunteering one of my copies for the D-Ascension Program." Ibrimeth became deathly silent. "I don't care what it takes, I need a P-MC AI on my side. Not only that. I require the presence of your best AI scientists, nanobot experts, cyber engineers. Everyone that deals with machines, Artificial Intelligences and technology. Especially nanotech." She leaned forwards with the look of a madwoman on a mission. "Everyone!"

Ibrimeth was left flabbergasted. How in the blessed flesh of the Avatars did she know that?! That program was not only absolutely classified, but reserved only for the highest ranked members of the Netraad Dynasties and only those who have written their name in eternity. The only reason why he even knew of that was because he was working directly for one of them and had certain privileges in knowing things others would not be allowed to. Then he remembered the day he visited Athame's cell and realized that the woman had the most advanced Touch in the galaxy. All she needed was to see him and it was enough for her to know anything!

Damnation! But that did not matter in the end.

"The D-Ascension Program is classified. It's not for the likes of you. Especially for you. In fact, the conditions of allowing you to work for us come with an exhaustive list of limitations and clauses. One of them is this." He responded icily. "Or have you forgotten why you were in prison?" Because she was a sick, twisted murderer and a unrepentant exploiter. A heartless monster who has a kill count of thirty million people, at the very least, and is responsible for slaughtering three noble houses and destroyed two entire dynasties, including her own. All in the name of her mad sciences.

But Athame didn't have any of it. She immediately turned frantic and slammed herself against the tempered glass window, digging her intense glare into Irimeth who out of instinct jumped back. "You don't get it! You have no idea what you have in your hands! In our blindness and ignorance we have assumed them to be mere beings of flesh and bone!" She shook her head wildly, as if she was berating herself mentally over something beyond Ibrimeth's capacity to know. "Such limited thought! Such lack of creativity! Its… its….ITS A SIN!!" She shouted and the sheer volume of her voice made him flinch. "They truly are the embodiment of perfection. They are a work of art unparalleled! Every time we dive into the coding of their flesh we always come out short! Always uncovering a new puzzle that itself leads the way to another deeper puzzle. Always! Because they are not biology!" They are not? But… but they have DNA! One of the many coding polymers of carbon based life. But then Athame spoke and her answer was as disquieting as it was illuminating. "….nor are they machines… They are both and neither. There is no line to distinguish one side of the coin from the other. Such blended perfection. Mechanical cells powered by chemical engines operating with mathematical precision, ever perfecting and ever evolving!" She proclaimed. "There is no flaw in the design. No error in the engines!" She became silent, as if whispering a prayer. "This is the work…. It's…." Then she slowly sank back into her seat, silent. They sat there for what amounted ten minutes of uneasy silence. But just as Ibrimeth was about to incite a reaction from her, she looked up to him, meeting his gaze. "I want to see them."

He did not understand. "Pardon?" She was about to answer again, but becamse silent. She shook her head, negating some stray though and corrected herself.

"No… I am wrong… I need to see them!" She spoke, demand and plead in her tone. "I need to create one! I need to understand them! I need to see them!! I would give my life to see them!" Then she realized. "Take me to him…"

Ibrimeth became already more suspicious, especially considering her increasingly erratic behaviour and improbable knowledge. "To whom?"

"The Ble…. The one who saw them…" Did she mean… No…. She didn't mean him. It was beyond her to ask that. "Take me to Lotris Prat."

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AN: I think I found the cure for my hiatitis syndrome caused by my musus diminutus progresiva. Make chapters shorter and make them have cliff-hangers. Loads of cliff-hangers!

So help me feed my muse. My greedy, greedy muse. She needs the nourishment as uni has returned with a vengeance!

 

[Black-Aengel-01]

Chapter 2.2



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"No." It was the one simple answer he could only give to the creature before him. Something that Athame did not take well at all, as it was obviously expected.

"What do you mean 'no'? It is essential for me to meet him!" She doubled down on her argument with greater strength in her tone. "You think I would dare harm him?" She accused the man before her, which caused Ibrimeth to close his side eyes and sigh. Considering her less than stellar track record at keeping people alive, Ibrimeth did not doubt it for a second that she would do something atrocious to the man if she got her way. And it did not limit to simply causing physical harm. There are many ways a person can cause damage to others. Twisting their values, their mentality, their sense of self. These are just a few of the countless acts of cruelty the witch before him has been accused off, and there could probably be more than had not been documented yet.

"Perhaps."

Instead of seeking to convince Ibrimeth through her more well-known skills at persuasion, ways she became agitated, almost as if what Ibrimeth said was the most offensive declaration in the universe. "I will do no such thing! He is important beyond measure to me and everything I am striving for! I could not dare harm him!"

She almost sounded like if she were pleading… begging like a desperate person for a chance of a lifetime. But Ibrimeth wouldn't fall for any of her tricks. She had her way with words and portrayal, a skill she had used countless times for compromising the minds of many men and women. Something that no one in their right mind would want to take a chance with. However, it did not mean that she was not slipping, and despite the high risk probability that this was all an act she did to get her way, Ibrimeth found himself more often believing that she was being genuine.

Sigh… he would need a replacement soon. Having constant remote interactions with the witch may be compromising him already.

"Either way, I cannot grant you an audience with him." Ibrimeth was then forced to hold back the shudder he felt when her hateful glare met his eyes. Those red eyes that alone could tear at his mind and make him expose even his most deep and darkest secrets. But he stood his ground in the face of terror and tried changing his tactic. "Mostly because you are far too valuable and everyone that has made contact with him has either gone mad or straight up died." Good thing that diplomacy when properly applied can help one survive, because the witch was now glaring at the man with slightly less concentrated disdain.

"I need him still." She stated. "I can make a perfect clone copy of myself if need be. She will handle the mental strain."

"I still cannot grant you an audience." Ibrimeth refuted.

"Then give me neurofuild!" She shouted. "I want samples from every single part of his brain. Every single one. The frontal orgin center, six milifluids, the lateral orgin centres, nine milifluids, the…" and she went on, naming each and every centre and neuron cluster in a prothean's brain, down with the specifics of how much he wants from each and every part of the body. It was a quantity that his contacts through the Touch told him were within safe parameters of extraction and would not result in any cognitive alterations in the patient. Well, no more than the ones already present by his meeting with the Preterhumans. However, that would take time. About six months to do at the least.

"I will not promise anything." Instant glare of doom and damnation. "I still have to report it to Perferix for clearance."

Her four red eyes glinted slightly as a familiar grin crossed her lips. "Then convince him for me that if he doesn't say yes, he will not get any more results."

"That is not up to you to decide." Ibrimeth tried, only for Athame to laugh. It was not a nice laugh. In fact, it was downright cruel and malevolent.

"Oh, but it is. I know you have been toiling to keep me oblivious about the various interesting happenings around the galaxy, but I know I am the single person in this entire empire that has managed to make enough breakthroughs in the Preterhuman's biology to consider me not only imperative, but an utterly irreplaceable asset." She leaned forwards, intensifying her four eyed stare into Ibrimeth's own. "And I know that the Nobility and the Ten Dynasties really, really want to locate the Preterhumans as hastily as possible. They may be too stubborn to admit it, but Preterhuman technology far surpasses our own and from what the remaining footage can tell, it is beyond what anyone has ever thought is even possible." She sat back, a knowing smile decorating her pristine features. "The perfect technology needed to halt the three way massacre our illustrious empire is at the brunt of. Four if the Preterhumans join in on the fun." She snorted, looking off into the distance. "Seriously, the only reasons why we have not been defeated yet are because we hold dominion over the vast majority of the Mass Relay Network thanks to the Innusanon's Star Maps and that our enemies are too far apart to properly formulate a cohesive crippling strike on us. But that state of affairs will not last. Not forever." She stood and made way to the exit. "So if you want to expedite the process I need Lotris, for only he was the one alive that made contact with the species whose knowledge still eludes our kind's greatest minds."

And with that she left, leaving behind a rather perturbed Ibrimeth, thinking on how in the name of the Ancestors is he going to escape with his skin attached.

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Erandir entered containment monitor room No. 0441. A rather infamous number, well known in this place and far beyond into the greater circles of the Nobility. Such was its dubious renown that the mere second he asked to be directed there, the receptionist VI asked for several hundred credentials, including a request if Erandir would want to leave a Memory Shard for any loved ones he had.

The very fact that the VI standard protocol would go to such extremes almost made Erandir want to delegate this task to someone of lower rank. However, it was very likely that anyone with less experience than him would lack the mental strength to enter the same chamber that held death within touch, if rumours are to be believed.

As he stood in the entrance to the monitoring room he scanned the people running this place and found them to all have this same haunted look in their eye. None was a Netraad, that alone explained no one had any lucidity in their stare.

"Erandir Drenn. Special Division under the Word and Will of the Ten Dynasties." He proclaimed his tittle and rank and the various wardens turned to him with a lethargic glance. One of them walked up to Erandir and nodded. One whose name tag told Erandir of the man's name. Roda That.

"What do you want Mr. Drenn?" It was only polite in wording, yet the tone almost demanded that Erandir explained why he was disrupting their schedule and making their day worse.

Seeing that the warden was in no mood to talk, Erandir simply have him a shard, whom the Roda analysed in quick order. Erandir had to wear a Touch inhibitor collar and suit to be allowed in. Something that everyone in the room also had and only permitted very special shard to connect, like the one he handed to the warden.

Sighing, the Roda put the data shard on a transmitter terminal and the rest of the wardens got the update to their duties. None of them seemed pleased. "I want to apologise for my tone." The one named Roda began, which caught Erandir a bit off guard. "We had an attack during our interview yesterday and no one here is feeling right after it. If you had come three days from now, we would have been more accommodating."

It was odd and alarming what the man had said. Erandir nodded. "I understand." He really did not, he would need more context for that. "You said an attack. Can you elaborate?"

Roda looked at Erandir with a mildly surprised gaze. "How much do you know of what happens in this place?"

"Not much. I was informed to send this shard your way and nothing else. We are not told what are the happenings in this room."

The warden looked at him with an indecipherable stare. He mused over the man for some time before he turned to a distant wall. Erandir followed the man's gaze and his four eyes widened in surprise when he saw seven parallel claw marks on the steel plate wall and if he could see right, there was traces of blood on it. What had caused that? What happened here? Was it not Lotris the actual danger in this place?

But any questions he was about to inquiry were silenced before they even left his mouth. "I agree." Roda said, solemnly. "It is best if you did not." And with that the warden left Erandir alone, returning back to his duties.

Erandir looked as the men worked, staring at the scene visibly confused. He turned to look at the claw marks, claws that no Prothean hand could make, and he decided there and then that he would prefer to be elsewhere than there, and turned to leave. But just as he walked away and departed the chamber, he overheard one of the wardens murmur something from behind, "Adelil will not be pleased." Then the doors closed and the secrets of room 0441 were left within.

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AN: I hope you like it. Comment and give criticism.



I have completed the Magnad, Wyrm and Cybrex (Shifter) Codexes and now I am working on the Sentients and Ship Models. When all of them are done I will post them all at once. Sorry things have been slow lately, but life has been a bitch with study and my muse being a cunt and not wanting to be helpful.

 

[Black-Aengel-01]

Chapter 2.3





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Ibrimeth stood at the glass, keeping his eyes down towards the reason of his ever growing worry.

Athame.

It had taken seven months to extract the appropriate amount of neurofluid for whatever her mad desires were. Seven months of extracting microscopic amounts of cerebral liquid from the brain of what best could be described as a religious mass of instant death.

And fourteen deaths by other… less defined means.

As time had passed, Lotris slowly grew more and more active. More aware of his surroundings. But no less unhinged. And suddenly one day… the deaths of researchers began to appear. Everyone that worked with the man eventually committed suicide and all clues point to the so called Ghost that the researchers had begun calling Adelil. Whatever it was, it showed particular hostility to anyone and anything that threatened Lotris' life and if questions persisted for too long during an interview, it would lash out and attack indiscriminately, either the researchers, the computers or the environment itself.

The ways it attacked were different each time, but oftentimes resulted in the death of someone, either sooner or later.

And the potency of the attack only increased with the passage of time.

It was an impossibility that was happening these last ten years. But they were happening and the Nobility wanted to know everything about that and if they could make use of it. Ibrimeth did not want to deal with the so called Adelil, and personally believed that something so paranormal should be left alone and far away from people.

Yet his superiors made a good counter argument to his personal views by pointing out that if the Preterhumans could create such impossible anomalies, then the Prothean people could also, or at the very least find ways to counter them. And for any of that to happen, the Preterhuman technology must be analysed.

It made sense… really it did.

But at the same time Ibrimeth cursed at the fact that the Nobility did not feel something such as fear and as a consequence, were the first to dive into the unknown, with insufficient regard of how many others would die following their command.

Well, it has worked for us so far, and maybe it would again.

Or perhaps not.

In truth no one was certain of anything when it came to these creatures. And the only one among the prothean people was the deranged Avatar of Flesh.

Speaking of which, the witch had already procured the container that brought her requested contents. Ibrimeth could see her joyful grin from where he was standing and he was almost perturbed by it. He could see how she struggled with it, staring at the case with a desire to see whatever was within that was almost physically painful to contain.

But eventually she made a step back and nodded to a near perfect copy of her to approach and be the willing sacrificial victim in this lunacy. The clone of her was already infected with a duplicate mind of hers and should be as dangerous as the original, with all the mental quirks and resistances that the original witch had.

It was one of the many reasons why the witch was so dangerous. Ibrimeth recalled reading in an old article during her reign of terror that at one point there were over a hundred and fifty clones of her wreaking havoc across the eastern frontier of the Empire. In fact if her 'experiments' had persisted for a few more months the Rachnii could have taken the opportunity to attack the Empire and would have caused a critical hit on the Dormonian Sector and probably would have had a direct line of attack towards the Citadel. Thankfully the Avatars of Annihilation and of the Hunt were able to locate her clones and kill them off before any permanent harm could be caused to the empire.

The Rachnii did attack after all, but were effectively repelled after the loss of twenty seven worlds and the counterattack had the Rachnii permanently lose three of their planets and one of their most advanced research centres. A bloody campaign, but another victory for the Prothean Empire.

The clone approached and the original Athame stepped away, nodding to her replica.

The clone nodded back and opened the case, letting chilly, sterilized mist flow out from within. The contents were several micro-vials arranged in the vague shape of a prothean cerebral cortex. Each vial containing microscopic traces of frozen cerebrovascular liquid.

She looked at the vials with an expression of excitement, as if she could not contain the glee forming inside her of what she is about to receive.

Ibrimeth would be far more cautious and fearful than anything else. Everyone who has ever being in contact with Lotris himself either died or went completely insane, usually forcing the later to be terminated for the safety of others.

He wanted to see the result of this mad wish of that witch.

He wanted to see them fail.

The witch's clone merged the vials under the Contact Union Shard and raised it, opening her mouth and extending her long tongue. The moment of truth had come.

She touched the Shard and she would scream as nightmares and horrors beyond the scope of imagination would ravage her mind into fragmented splinters, rending her into a deranged, berserker like trance that she would not, could not escape from. She would lash out and strike at her mind sisters and progenitor and in the process spill the contents of Lotris' cerebral fluids into all directions. Making contact with the others and therefore sending them into their own insane fits of horror and lunacy. Creating a cascading effect that would inevitably condemn the witches into irrecoverable dementia and insanity, forevermore silencing her and her vile deeds to the future of this galaxy.

This was as how it supposed to be and has always been whenever someone has made contact with the cursed blood and flesh of the mad warrior turned death incarnate that was Lotris Prat.

None of that happened.

There was no screaming, no yelling. Not a single sound.

Absolute silence permeated the chambers. A silence so deep and profound that Ibrimeth could hear his own heartbeat. Not a single being made a sound as they watched the replica of the Avatar of Flesh soundlessly stare into the high ceiling above with wide eyes. Her pupils were dilated to such an extreme that would almost be seen as a sign of deep drug abuse. Yet, they could see it in her.

Everyone could.

Those were the eyes of someone who was witnessing something so awful that it became magnificent. There was pure awe radiating off her and even with the inhibitors in place and the myriad of shields against the witches' Touch… they could feel her reverence.

She blinked once, twice, thrice. Washing away the tears that were forming in her wide, dilated eyes.

Her grip became weak and the Shard fell from her hands into the floor with an audible click. The sound becoming as loud as a thunderclap with the all-consuming silence that permeated the chambers.

She saw it. She saw what they were. Undiluted and uncontained.

And her lips began to move. "The fall of a world into a Sea of Nightmares." She began and Ibrimeth shuddered at her voice which no longer resembled those of any prothean. A voice that flowed as smooth as water, tones as gentle as starlight, and yet hiding a deep darkness that would submerge all into oblivion. "Its return and with it, the coming of the Blessed Night.

The wars against the Beyond and the Dreaming Dead Precursors.

She whose Love had to commit Unending Genocide.

And the Sight of the End of all Ends they escaped. Six forms of glory. Two to guide. An equation of love and of life." She giggled, like the laughter of a small child. "It's magnificent."

Her hands extended as everyone high above stared in stunned silence. She had survived the ordeal and spread her arms to bestow the gift to all others. A chance that the Avatar of Flesh took with reverence and both progenitor and progeny held hands, before embracing in reverent bliss.

"What… what just happened?" Ibrimeth heard to his left and turned his shocked gaze to see all the wardens and researchers leaning on the glass panel, staring down at the event that had just unfolded.

"She actually managed to survive it…" Another said.

"And not become insane."

"You mean no more than what she already was."

"Look!"

Ibrimeth turned to the scene bellow and watched as clone and original stepped away. The Avatar of Flesh was smiling. Not a knowing smile. Not a fevered one. Not one of malice or of insanity. But one of calm serenity. Her head down in peaceful worship and her eyes closed.

But the tranquil silence passed and her head slowly craned up as her twinkling crimson red eyes opened and met the many researchers and wardens staring down at her with shock and morbid wonder.

Then her white lips parted. "The priestess summons her humble flock. Our purpose is here at long last."

Not a second later, the sound of a gunshot was heard.

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AN: I hope you like this chapter. If you see anything that needs correcting or change, please let me know.

And finally, like and comment. It sustains my muse.

 

[Black-Aengel-01]

Chapter 2.4





It only took a split second for everything to descend into absolute chaos.

Shrieks of terror and alarm echoed throughout the chamber as everyone realized what just had transpired and not a second later the dead body of one of the researchers fell to the hard floor with a loud thud.

Ibrimeth reacted in an instant and covered himself in a mass effect field as did everyone else with a modicum of combat training.

One of the wardens was smiling placidly as his hand aimed down a gun at his next victim.

Not if Ibrimeth can say something about it. Using his biotics he unleashed a distortion pull on the prothean, forcing him off balance and open to a subsequent attack. But the attacker was just as skilled with biotics and used his own field to follow the pull and do an acrobatic manoeuvre that allowed him to negate the pull and regain his balance in under an eye blink.

However, he was till one against five other practitioners of the Channelling.

Another prothean made use of a powerful push while another one used pull, each in opposing directions. The disorientation was brief and allowed the traitor to fire off his weapon a few more times, but the task was done and he was hit afterwards by a stasis blast and it had him frozen in time. A single second later another prothean drew his own firearm and aimed at the man's arms and legs, aiming for incapacitation for later questioning.

A gunshot, but it did not come from him.

Instead of his gun Artadas MAP-3 pistol firing, a hole appeared right through his head as a pellet flew through his cranium.

It was when Ibrimeth turned to see not one, but three different firearms aimed at the wardens and himself. And with the small distraction provided by the new traitors the stasis field dissipated and returned to the attack.

Now they were matched. Four against four and the enemy had the advantage of surprise. A surprise they capitalized on by firing several volleys against Ibrimeth and the rest of the wardens.

He and the defenders were quick to raise a Wall to stop the gunfire, but the prothean traitor in their midts complicated things. He had taken the opportunity to unleash a Sundering Warp and had ibrimeth and the others deal with the resulting explosion of warpfire in their place. Ibrimeth reacted fast enough to raise another wall against the explosion, just in the nick of time. But such was its potency that it managed to peel off the skin on the tip of his hands when he raised his hands to invoke the power.

Unfortunately the others were not so fast and two of them suffered crippling burns. Ibrimeth swore under his breath and decided that enough had become enough.

With his still bleeding hand he gripped something from his puches and threw it at the three traitors. The three reacted with haste and tried to use a biotic push to throw what it most likely was a grenade. They were right. It was a grenade.

Too bad for them that this thing was no ordinary one.

Just as the biotic field made contact with the spherical device it flared with a biotic corona and whatever invocation the traitors were about to enact was rendered useless.

They did not react fast enough to the unexpected new development and the grenade bounced on the floor just where they were standing.

Ibrimeth enjoyed for a single split second the look on their faces, then everything shook when a singularity swallowed the traitors and then exploded in a shower of gore and blood. The gravitational wave caused managed to create tremors across the whole station and sent him and everyone else flying.

But Ibrimeth was a pratictioner of the Channeling and managed to recover quickly enough to draw his pistol and fire at the last remaining traitor several times forcing the man to raise a Wall to defend himself. And opportunity that Ibrimeth took and flew straight at him with a Charge. Closing the distance in an instant Ibrimeth closed his bleeding hands into biotic enhanced fists and in a strike far too fast for the traitor to counter, Ibrimeth struck him on the head and split his skull open like a overripe fruit being hit by a hammer, painting an entire wall in blood and viscera.

The enemies defeated and earning the prothean a brief moment, he took on the situation he was present with. Ten researchers were dead, two wardens dead and two gravely incapacitated and the last one alive was injured. He himself had his hands burned by the warp fire and needed medical attention quickly. Attention he knew would not be available anytime soon.

He used the Touch and attempted to discern any information he could from the dead traitors, only to find stiff resistance that he could not bypass. Not in any timely manner. He recognized these the resistance to the Touch. It was a piece of counterintelligence biotechnology originally developed by the Rachnii and perfected by the Thrass Nien.

How was it possible that these traitors acquired such technology? Regardless that meant he had an idea who may be behind it all. Having the Witch unleashed through the Empire would cause further stress on trying to locate her. An opportunity that could be capitalized by the Coalition and finally manage to strike a decisive blow against the Prothean Realm.

This was a serious threat that needed to be eliminated and soon.

Ibrimeth focused his mind and connected to the systems through the Touch and made an emergency call to the fleet surrounding the station.

+Ibrimeth Solteran, Section 205, Special Operations. We have multiple intruders in station. Requesting immediate emergency intervention. Prepare for Contingency 45. Respond.+

As the time after the message went on, Ibrimeth had a horrible sensation that something was horribly wrong.

So the traitors had shut down the Transmission system. No! They had most likely hijacked it as Ibrimeth and every other person here was equipped with a Dead Man's Switch in the event of a compromise of security. If anyone were to die it would have been a straight order to the fleet to open fire if there was no reply for more than three minutes on the situation on board.

In other words, the signal his Switch was transmitting was being blocked and a forged one sent in its place to the fleet.

"You!" Ibrimeth shouted at one of the seven still surviving researchers. One which the Touch informed was the chief of communications. "The dead man switch transmissions are being jammed. Get in contact with the fleet outside. Now!" The woman quickly nodded and went to the communications panel.

Ibrimeth took that chance to inspect the integrity of the glass and sighed in relief that it still held strong. Good. Athame was still contained. But if no one kept the doors shut and secured then a breach was eminent.

"You there." Ibrimeth now turned to the injured warden. "Can you fight still?" The man nodded and stood, creating a biotic flare, despite his badly burned arm. "Good." Ibrimeth expanded his sense of the Touch and made a mental handshake with the warden.

Name, age, skill, profession, all was interchanged in a brief instant. Now both knew everything they needed from each other.

Ibrimeth turned to the researcher who was still furiously tapping on the controls and sent a mental inquiry. "Sir, the signal is not being blocked."

Utter silence. "What?"

"The signal is getting through! It isn't being blocked." She repeated, her tone one of distress.

"What does that mean?" Doner, the warden with the burnt arm demanded.

"That the fleet is also compromised." Ibrimeth answered with cold realization. Turning to the other prothean. "This was a coordinated attack and they had not only managed to infiltrate us, but the fleet as well."

"But… how?!" Doner demanded. Confusion and shock clear in his voice.

Ibrimeth merely turned to the witch in observation, looking down at her from his vantage point. Her eyes were still full of reverence and awe as were all of her copies. She hadn't moved a single unit from where she was before this all started, and neither did the others in the chamber. "I don't know." He turned back to the warden. "But you can bet a thousand credits its connected to her. The traitors used technology from the Coalition, so they may be attempting to unleash a veritable Dranan in a glass store. The Dranan being the Witch and the store being our empire."

"What do we do now?" One of the other researchers asked.

"The fleet may have traitorous elements within, but had they already been compromised then that would mean we would have been invaded. That means we may have a window of opportunity to salvage this." He turned to Doner. "They want her, so we will deny the witch to her supposed rescuers. Let's get to work and destroy this station."

"Yes sir!" They all reaffirmed.

"Engineering is three levels down. Do you think that there are more traitors down there?" The communications head asked and to her reply, several gunshots were heard from beneath.

"I guess that's a yes then."